Actually, you would double the total number of inches for the border to include borders around all sides. In this example it comes to 40" in addition to the 33.5sq ft per bunch. Essentially 3 sq ft per bunch?

I grow organically and still use fertilizer trenches most years. I just put organic fertilizer in the trenches instead of one that is synthetic in nature.

Bon, You are going to be so disappointed in my answer. I go outside and dig my fertilizer trenches down the length of the first raised bed, I put the fertilizer in, fill in the trenches with soil, and pat down the soil firmly. Then, I plant my onions using Dixondale's recommended spacing. I don't preplan. I don't measure. I don't graph it out on paper. I plant until I run out of onions. It is more typical that I'll run out of bed before I run out of onions. When that happens, I go to bed number 2 and do the same thing all over again. Most years, if Dixondale's order pullers haven't seriously overpacked the plants, I'll get 3 to 4 bundles per raised bed. My beds vary in length, but generally the ones I use are 4' wide by 30-50' long. However, I don't plant only onions in them. I leave little open area I can come back and fill in with flowers or herbs. How many of those areas I leave is variable, depending on how large the beds I'm using that year are, how many onion plants are in each bundle, etc.

The thing about basing your planting plan on averages is that some years the person pulling and shipping onions at Dixondale, in an apparent fit of of insanity, will put far too many onions in a bundle----I've had 150 to 300 in one bundle before, though not very often. Still, I've rarely had as few as 50 per bundle, and normally more than 75. Sometimes if some of those extra ones are really tiny (which might be why the bundles are overpacked), I just throw away the tiny extra ones.

If I fill up two beds and still have onions left, I usually think of everything else left to plant, and go back and squeeze in the extra onions, inserting one onion in between every two onions previously planted. I'll go back in a few weeks and start harvesting the 'inserted' ones to use as scallions/green onions, and I do it long before the onions begin to bulb up so that the extra onions don't stay in the ground long enough to keep the remaining onions from achieving a great size.

Onions do best in sandy soil, but it kinda helps that clay is highly fertile. To get nice big onions, your plants need roughly 21" of rainwater or irrigation over their brief lifetime in your ground, and they need a pretty steady supply of nitrogen. To get really big onions, you need a lot of nitrogen. It is your onion leaf size and the number of leaves that determines how big your onions and their rings (layers) will be. You get one ring/layer of onion flesh for each leaf. If the leaves are big and huge, your onions will be big and huge. If your onions are scrawny and wimpy, your onions will be small to medium sized. If the onions are planted too closely together, their size will be limited. There's no real right or way to do it because everyone has to make judgement calls based on their goals (big onions essential? small or medium ones fine? how to accommodate poorer soil? wetter soil? drier conditions? I know square foot gardeners who squeeze in onion plants pretty closely together and get smaller onions, but they get enough to meet their needs, so they don't care if the onions are smaller.

In years I haven't bothered with trenches, I've planted the onions in well-amended clay to which a minimum of 2-3" of organic matter was added. In that case, I then scatter the organic fertilizer on top of the ground and rototill it into the soil with my Mantis cultivator. Then I plant the onions evenly in all directions, spacing them 4" apart in every direction, so they are planted as solid blocks of plants, not in rows.

I also adapt my planting locations and spacing depending on how dry or wet I expect the onion growing season to be. Sometimes I'm a good guesser and other times I'm just lucky, and sometimes I'm neither one.....

But we always get lots of onions.

Well, I gotta do it at least once to get an idea. See my math, there? How I forgot something totally and put the amendment below? That's how my garden usually is. LOL It's good for me to TRY to be organized. hahaha

When planting in blocks do the different varieties cause confusion or is it apparent from growth habit and leaf structure?

Or do you plant a certain variety per bed?

I plant in blocks by variety, so all the onions in a block are the same. Then, when it is time to plant another variety, I leave a couple of square feet bare before I start the next block and come back later and put herbs or flowers in that spot. I just like to do it to break up the monoculture and to have plants every few feet that will attract and nourish pollinators and beneficial insects. A monoculture that is row after row of onions probably is going to be real attractive to thrips.

Most onion plants look more or less the same. It isn't like one of them has foliage that is a unique yellowish-green and another has foliage that is a unique purplish-green. They're all just green and a deeper green if adequate nitrogen is present. Once the onion bulbs start enlarging and pushing their way up out of the ground, I can tell at a glance if they are white, yellow or purple, and that tells me which variety they are----in combination with DTMs. I do put stakes or labels in the ground that tells me which block is which and I make back-up maps that show what was planted where, but they really aren't necessary. I know about when each variety I grow generally starts to near maturity in my garden, and once one of them starts, then the others follow in fairly rapid succession. I added the two long-day types last year (they are special in that they are about the equivalent of very late intermediate types or very early long day types) and that allowed me to harvest fresh onions from mid-May through some time in July. Having the harvest spread out over the longest possible period is very important. I only have so many folding tables under the patio cover, so can only cure a certain amount of plants in the shade at one time. It helps if I can spread out the curing period over a couple of months instead of trying to do it all in a couple of weeks.

If I plant on time, the first onions are mature in May, which is important in terms of starting the canning train rolling down the track on time. It works out almost perfectly because I need for the onions to be ready, usually no later than early June, when the first big tomato, bell pepper and jalapeno pepper harvests are done and I'm making salsa. If they start maturing in May, I already have them cured and ready to use when I bring in the first huge tomato and pepper harvests.

I do better when I am not organized. I've tried it both ways---being a lot more organized in the early years here and not at all purposefully organized for the last decade. I've decided this love of disorganization occurs because I like to follow my intuition and just let it lead me to what I should do. Otherwise, I overthink things and then worry and fret about whether I made the best choice. When I let my intuition guide me, there is no worry and no fretting. I trust that my intuition won't lead me astray.

When I walk out to the garden tomorrow to get the bed or beds ready for onion planting, which bed or beds will it be? Who knows? That is when I'll decide, and it will be decided based on what feels right at the moment. About the only rule I have is that I avoid planting them in the same raised beds where I grew them the previous year.

My beds run lengthwise east to west and I always start at the west and work my way towards the east while planting. Does it matter that I don't start at the east? I doubt it. I just do it the way I always have. So, the short days are going to be the plants nearest the entry arbor where I enter the garden, and the harvest always starts at the west end of the garden and progresses eastward as the season goes on. It makes me look like a well-organized planner, but I'm not. I just grab the early days first, plant them, and then move on to the intermediate days and then the late-days. I like it when simple things like that make me look more organized than I am in real life. Tim is the total opposite---he is the man with a plan for every occasion. He'd probably be totally and completely horrified if he realized how haphazardly I plan (lol, okay, don't plan) my plantings.

It is easy to overthink, overplan and worry. I try to take the opposite approach and just let things happy naturally in a zen sort of way. I don't want a highly planned and organized garden. I want a crazy quilt sort of garden, and that's just what I end up with.

Good stuff. I need to clear off my front porch for the potential onion harvests. Seems like a logistical nightmare, but one with which I'm willing to contend. I look forward to some super sweet onions. It's not something I bother with at the grocer, kinda like last year's Yukon Golds. They never had them before I grew them. I'm glad I didn't splurge on any of these. My family is more convinced that home-grown taste better. Of course they'll still taste better than the equivalent from the store, but not knowing these are better varieties makes them more committed to home grown.

I know how to cook bloomin' onions. At least, I think I do. I've done it before about ten years ago. Need the right onions, tho. :D

I am super grateful for .... I can only think of her proper name and I don't want to use it because she's not on this thread and doesn't chime in, often. In addition, I cannot remember her Gardenweb name. The gal organizing the Dixondale onions. That's who! SO affordable with the bulk orders. I about freaked tonight when I caught the wrong idea that tonight was the night.

Pick up is next Friday. :D

Love this Bon and Dawn. As I am dreaming of onions that almost went to Collinsville ? I was trying to figure about how much space I want to get ready tomorrow.
Since the tractor is still broke down I will have to clean up the area by hand. There are sticker weeds 6' in the garden area so I am not real enthused to do more than I have to...
I am part planner part do it different at planting time. I like the natural garden, stuff here and there, but since my son is helping me it may be a little more organized this year.
I am going to be putting a few sets at the house but probably will put 15 sets at the barn.
kim
oh ya on a side note I have been entering random garden contests and I Won one. You will never believe the prize.
I won cotton seed. Yes black leaf cotton seed. I am excited to see what this looks like.

Bon, You're thinking of our very dear and sweet (and remarkably accomplished) SeedMama. : )

Home-grown does taste better, and remarkably so. That's one reason why we work so hard to do what we do.

Kim, When I have to clear land that tall weeds have overtaken, I cut them down first with a hand-held string trimmer. I usually will use the one with string that cuts, but if they are very tough weeds, we have one that has a metal blade instead of string. It even cuts tree saplings. After they are cut, then I rake them up and haul them off to one of the compost piles. Then, as always, I break up the soil with my Mantis cultivator. There's not much it won't do. I never would tackle some of those tasks with hand tools. However, I do have a scythe I can use if power tools like string trimmers cannot be used for some reason.

Do y'all have a burn ban? Could you do a prescribed burn to burn off the weeds? I'm assuming we're talking about the place in the country. Obviously in town prescribed burning wouldn't be allowed, and if you have wind this weekend with all the heat, it wouldn't be a good day to burn off the weeds either.

There's more than one way to skin a cat. (Don't tell my cats I said that because they might take it the wrong way.) When the tractor is broken, be creative and find a way to do it that won't have you removing 6' tall sticker plants by hand. Ouch! Who wants to spend what might be the prettiest day in a long time doing that?

Black cotton is pretty. I have seed for Black Beauty. I had it last year and didn't get it planted. Maybe this year. There's always too many things on my grow list compared to space available. I've also got red-foliated, green and brown cotton seeds to sow. Several years ago I saw black cotton plants in an issue of Martha Stewart Living or some similar publication and I've never forgotten them. They were just gorgeous plants.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:2143801}}

To clarify my garden, actually my sons property, is in the edge of town. It sits between the last house and acres of pasture. It is 1.08 acres with unlimited use of an area for the garden and hog pens. It overlooks cattle to the East and to the North is the Caprock, stunning views.
Our plan is dig a huge hole and push the weeds into it and bury or burn. My son has access to backhoe at work so that part is easy.
Unfortunately I do not have any equipment to help remove the weeds before time to plant onions but I don't mind a sharp hand tool and a lot of them pull easily.
I have found a gentleman in town that will come look at the tractor for us.

Question In all my studying I can not remember if I should run rows E/W or N/S ? It is 125 ish feet west to east and 75 ish feet north to south
Thanks for letting me pick your brains.
kim

Kim, that is a TON of onions. Woot! Congrats on yer black cotton. Hope it does well,here. (I wouldn't know.)

I just researched the directional planting thingy a few days ago. The word is N/S is ideal. E/W is good early spring as it helps collect heat, but could be devastating for warm crops in our summer season.

But when i was thinking of my own personal garden, wind from the West was a huge factor in placements. I think wind and direct flaming sun atop the plants is most problematic in my garden for less hardy varieties. Confusing, innit?

Bon,

My Dixondale onions arrived today and I thought of your thread and counted the onions in each bundle. I knew there would be a lot because they were big fat bundles. So, here's the plant count per bundle/variety:

Candy 99

Highlander 101

Red River 122

Texas Early White 195

Texas Legend 87

Kim, I have grown gardens with rows that ran east-west and those that run north-south. Both have produced equally well.

Right now, out back, the rows run from SE to NW because that garden is up on sort of a mesa (at least on three sides) and that's how the widest part of the mesa and the garden runs.

When I am trying to decide which way to run rows in full sun all day long, I take into consideration how the water flows (remember, all my gardens slope because our entire property slopes and the only really flat area is where the house and outbuildings are) and also which direction our prevailing winds come from during gardening season (in my case, it is south, south, south and, occasionally, southwest). Since we are so often rain-challenged here, I site the rows to slow down the flow of moisture so it all just doesn't run through the pathways and down into the woods and creek. For the first decade-plus in the front garden, the garden was set up like a potager with some rows running in either direction. All produced well.

Now, if you are dealing with too much shade, site the rows where the sun-loving plants get as much sun as possible.

Honestly? I have had rows run in all different sort of ways and I don't think it really matters how you run them. In Texas and in Oklahoma. We always have plenty of sunlight, heat and wind, so just figure out what serves your plants best in those conditions. I've had great gardens whether the rows ran east-west, north-south, in circles, or whatever.

The important thing is to put your taller plants on the north side of the garden so they don't shade the others. UNLESS you are using the tall plants to deliberately shade plants that suffer in our hot summer sun---like growing lettuce beneath tomato plants or pepper plants between tomato plants so the shade of the tomato plants helps prevent the pepper fruit from sunscalding, See, for every so-called gardening rule, there's a reason to break it.

Our property is a creek hollow with tall woodland on two sides and with the house and trees and outbuildings on the third side, so we only get really strong winds when they are coming out of the east. We don't get a lot of winds out of the east here, except in spring when places to our east are spraying herbicide and in that case, the wind comes out of the east every day they are spraying. Generally, the woodland areas give us good enough wind protection that we rarely have plants blown over unless it is during a thunderstorm when the wind is coming from anywhere and everywhere.

If I had a big wind issue, I'd plant permanent plants around the garden perimeter for a permanent windbreak.

Since we have excessively sunny weather for months on end and excessive heat as well, if anything, instead of trying to plant so our plants get the most sun, we should be planting in a way that gives them a break from the heat, intense sunlight and wind, if possible. Maybe the way that rows run matter more to folks who are a lot further north on the continent than we are.

I have watched to see how local long-time gardeners and farmers plant their rows here. There is no consensus. For every place you see with rows running east-west, you see one where they are running north-south. I feel like people are planting their rows in whichever orientation works best for them on their specific site. The black-eyed pea farm a few miles south of me runs all their rows east-west like I run mine in the front garden, and I figure they've been growing a lot longer than I have. Fred runs his the same way I run mine. Another couple of folks up the road north of us run theirs north-south. All of us have very successful gardens with great yields, which strengthens my belief that maybe it doesn't matter all that much which way you orient your rows.

Dawn

i did NOT read all the replies ... heck i didnt even finish the long original ... lol .. but i wont let that stop me ... lol ...

but the first thing i thought.. when i read the title.. was that Os are one of the few things.. that can be used at any stage of development ... arent they???

if so ... over plant.. and harvest as they grow... making the space they will eventually need ...

ken

I can tell ya, it was pretty boring. No loss, there. LOL

I think the overall consensus is just as you say. :D

I am going to plant my onions close at the house and pick out every other one as they bulb up for use but in my big garden I am going to allow most of them to get big to preserve and share.
Dawn with your row directions I will go with my original plan. Rows running N to S with a 5' path right down the middle from W to E. Then each row will be 30'.
I measured today and my son was very close. 75'x 121' and he said it was 75 x 125. I was shocked he was so close. The area is all full sun so I will be doing some strategic plantings to keep the lettuces and greens to the east of the taller plants. The water runs west to east as there is a 10 foot drop from the west side.
Dawn that is a big difference in the quantities. I cant wait for mine to come in.
kim

Okay. I read your reply, Dawn. Scratch the calcs. The goal will be to find places for them all LOL Yes, I will stuff them in with everything that's okay with onions. SHEESH that's alot of onions!

Bon, I forgot to say I live in cotton country surrounded by cotton farmers every which direction. That is why I think its especially funny I won cotton. and the farmers wives think its hysterical. So will be planting 10 cotton seeds of the black leaf variety ad hopefully get enough to stuff a little pillow for my little man.
kim

I know where at least one bed of onions will be this year. I have never liked the bed where it is and the wooden sides are falling apart. It will be onions in the Spring, then when the onions come out, the wood comes off, and it will get a few Fall tomato plants. It has always been too close to the gate, making it difficult to get in with the wheelbarrow. It is the gate where we bring in mushroom compost and leaves, so by Fall we will have an easier entrance with that raised bed removed. It was originally put there for Spring greens when my garden got so muddy. Now that the soil has been improved, I don't have a mud problem, so out it comes.

I normally like to get nice big onion bunches, but if I get as many as Dawn got, I will have to have a garden annex....probably my son's place. LOL Ya gotta love Dixondale.

I feel overwhelmed, sometimes, when I read these threads. They are so helpful though, because they highlight things that I've never thought of.

1. So, I should look for bundles of onions, not bags. And they should be short-day onions. Is it too late to order from Dixondale--the place y'all are talking about? I saw onions at Lowe's, but I can't remember if they're the right kind.

2. I've never grown onions and I don't own a greenhouse or hoop house or even warming covers yet. If I plant the onions in March and it freezes, will my onions still produce? (I live between Moore and Norman.) I planted garlic in the fall and they haven't came up yet. (I'm hoping the cats didn't ruin them when they used the bed as a liter box, although I put a wire cover over the little bed when I saw they had used it as a liter box once.
Should I cover the onions with something like straw to keep them warm? Or does straw even help?

OH mah gollies, Kim. that is hilarious! You can plant them, grow and harvest and feel like ya fit right in *snickers

Carol, it's CRAZY. Gonna be a wild year.

Hazel, I will try to answer one of your onion questions in the best way I can, and I apologize for the length. I became interested in this topic after attending a gardening class years ago taught by a lady who had a degree in horticulture and she showed both dry bulbs and plants and told us which ones to plant for green onions and which to plant for bulbs, but when asked "Why?", she didn't know. I just have one of those minds that has to know WHY. Before that time I had only grown onions to use as green onions and luckily I had chosen the right kind.

Onions are biennial plants. The nature of the plant is to grow from seed, to plant, to bulb in one year. If you leave the plant in the ground and it lives through the winter, it's job in the second year is to set seed. If your temperatures are perfect, then this is exactly what happens.

When you buy those little bulbs that have been grown to a certain size, then dried and sold as bulbs in little bags, and you plant in your garden, their nature is to 'think' they are in their 2nd year. That works just fine if you pull them in the green onion stage, but if you leave them in the ground and try to get them to bulb, they will most likely send up a seed stalk (called bolting) and begin producing seed.

Dixondale is in deep south Texas and they plant onions in the Fall, in early Spring the plants are dug and bundled and quickly sent to parts of the country that is too cold to grow them through the winter, but great for planting in early Spring. In most, if not all, of Oklahoma, we can plant in February or March and have a good crop before the bad heat comes. The plants are shipped very fresh so they can be kept a short while until your conditions are right, but they are shipped to arrive as close to the correct planting date as possible, unless you request another date. Even with plants, they may bolt if they are larger around than a pencil when planted, if the weather gets really cold and stays cold for a long time making them think it's winter, and probably other reasons that I am not remembering right now. But normally, that digging, shipping, planting event has not disturbed the growing nature of that plant enough to cause bolting and your weather will cooperate.

When I go through my onion plants, I pull out the largest ones (larger than a pencil) and plant them in another place to use for green onions, just to be on the safe side.

You may still have a few that will bolt, but you can just use them fresh, because they will not store.

Onions are also day sensitive, which means that they begin the bulbing process when the number of daylight hours is long enough for that particular type of onion. Onions are sold as short day, intermediate day, and long day, and a few more categories. The idea is that you plant as early as your climate allows so that the plant can make as many leaves (blades) as possible before your day length makes it begin to bulb. As Dawn said earlier, each blade represents one layer of the onion. Although the north has colder weather, later in the Spring than we do, they have more daylight hours as Summer approaches. They plant long day types so they can also get large plants before they start to bulb. A lot of the storage onions are this type.

Seedmama, a member of this group, has taken orders and combined them into a large order for the last few years to save on shipping costs. What she does is a lot of work and a very nice service for those who live near the OKC metro area. Dawn, Robert, or I, don't live close enough to participate in the group order, so we order individually, but that is OK because we order a larger quantity than most individuals on the Forum do. You should check this Forum in January if you want to order next year, if it still happens. It might be hard to justify the shipping costs for a small individual order.

I hope this helps. Carol

Carol that is a good explanation of why different ones did different things. I thought I did something wrong when I got little ones.
I was determined to get dixondale this year so I got a couple people to order with me.
kim

Kim, I have a friend in Vinita that is a very good gardener, but his wife told me they could never get onions, except green onions. One year I sat down and wrote instructions for him and sent him a bunch of Dixondale Candy onions to plant. I didn't talk to him about it again, and didn't really expect to, since we share odd seeds, and even produce now and then. Not long ago his wife mentioned that they had never been able to grow onions until I taught them how. LOL Well, Dixondale had a lot more to do with it than I did, but it does help to understand the plant a little so you know what to expect.

Y'all, My theory on the different numbers in the different bunches is that the folks who pick them and bundle them are trained to grab a certain size bundle of plants, yank it out of the ground and bundle it with a rubber band. I expect that when they do that, they get a minimum of 50-75. Then, depending on how many seeds germinated in that row, you may get more, or significantly more. Most of my bundles looked the same size to the naked eye, but each had different numbers. Some had a few onions that veered towards being too large to transplant well (those bigger ones tend to bolt) and some were extremely tiny (those sometimes die). Overall though, I bet I'll get more than 50-75 mature or usable (I always harvest some to use as scallions or to use in cooking long before all of them reach max size) onions from each bundle. That is, assuming Mother Nature doesn't find a way to kill them or to make them bolt.

Hazel, To add to what Carol said, when you buy those little dried onion bulbs called "sets" and sold in bags, they tend to be long-day types that never will bulb up here because they need the number of hours of daylight more common in the northern US. My dad tried to grow them repeatedly in the 1960s/70s and never got big onions. When he switched to the bundles of little onion plants, all of a sudden he got huge onions, and it was because he was growing the short-day types that grew so well in our part of Texas.

Just stick with us and ask your questions and we'll answer to the best of our ability.

There was a time when I just bought the bundles of plants, stuck them in the ground, and got great onions some years and not-so-great onions in other years. It is the search for answers in the bad years that helps us learn and expand our knowledge, which in turn helps us have fewer and fewer bad years. With onions, though, sometimes you can do everything "right" and the weather just hits you with all the wrong things at all the wrong times.

Because I grew up in a gardening family, I knew from watching my dad's onions pop up out of the ground, that as the bulb enlarges, they do just that....increasingly rise above the grade of the soil. If you see it, and just accept it as a normal part of growing onions, you don't even think about it, right? However, someone who's never grown onions and never seen how they pop up above grade level as they bulb up might think there was something wrong....and that's when it is smart to come here to GW and say "Is this normal?" That way you get an answer and don't have to worry and fret over it.

Carol, I do think we have to give Dixondale tons of credit for the work they do to teach people how to grow onions and what is normal and what is not. I love getting their monthly newsletters. Sometimes the newsletters remind me of things that I know but have forgotten. Their growing guides are superb, and I love their daylength maps. I've also noticed that when they add something new, like Highlander and Red River, they explain that even though they are long-day types, they'll also generally perform well in intermediate-day areas. If they hadn't included that in their description, I never would have tried these two and both performed superbly for me.

Somewhere, GoneFishin' is smiling because he encouraged so many folks here on GW to give ordering from Dixondale a try, and we have, and we continue to spread the word. When I open my Dixondale box and see all those lovely, fresh green bundles of onions, I am grateful I took his advice. Onions in the garden centers never look this good and fresh unless you buy them the same week the onions arrived at the stores.

Dawn

Sorry to give you a brain wire and make ya count them, Dawn. But I do appreciate it. I know more what to expect and it makes sense.

well you guys have convinced me I need to try Dixondale onions. I also will be looking up their site to learn how the grow nice sized onions. Enjoy the conversation and the info. Thanks again.

I'm glad you are going to give them a try. Dixondale has been in business since 2013, has approximately 200,000 mail order customers and raises roughly 900 million onions per year. The company has remained in the hands of the family that founded it all this time, with the grandson of the founder still active in the business in his early 90s, and with his daughter and her husband still involved in the business. A lot of their employees have been there for decades, a rare achievement in the agricultural world nowadays where seed companies and other ag firms get snapped up by multinational companies right and left and employees come and go. I like that they have remained true to their roots and have retained ownership and operation of their family firm and that they have many loyal employees. They also have many loyal customers---90% of their customers are repeat customers. (All these stats were in a "Texas Gardener" magazine article on Dixondale that I read last fall.) Any business that has that sort of repeat customers clearly is doing something right. One of their commercial customers is Bonnie Plants, so even if you buy BP onions from a box in a local store here in OK, you're likely getting onions raised by Dixondale. I still prefer to buy them directly from Dixondale because the BP plants I've seen in local stores just have a generic name on the box like "white grano". Well, I don't want just any old white grano onion variety---I want one I've grown in the past and that has done well for me. If Dixondale onions were available in stores near me in boxes with the actual variety name on them, I'd buy them, but I've never seen them locally. So, I just buy online and have them shipped and have great results from them. In the rare year when I don't get a wonderful harvest, it is because the weather has been behaving badly. Well, OK weather often misbehaves, so I'll say it is when the OK weather has been behaving more badly than usual.

There's the grower's guides on their website and they also have U-tube videos if you'd rather watch than read.

Would rabbit poo work in the trenches for fertilizer? Its all I have right now.

Kim

I don't know if it will work in the trenches. It would work rototilled right into the soil where the onions will grow.

A former GW member named Bill P. who posted as Gone Fishin' (now deceased) always had the largest onion plants and onions that I've ever seen anyone grow in Texas. He gardened east of Dallas I believe, or maybe southeast. He always added horse manure/straw from his daughter's horse barn, rototilling it into the soil a few weeks before planting. His onions (grown from Dixondale transplants) were simply amazingly huge and healthy.

Dawn, Did you get in the wrong century? LOL They celebrated their 100th year in 2013, I think.

Well, Kim. I have rabbit poo and I ain't gonna buy no fertilizer and ain't gonna set up special fertilizer trenches cuz I'm too lazy and I ain't gonna till because I ain't got one. I'll be adding rabbit poo and accompanying hay into the soil as I hand dig the planting trenches. I wish it had been done last fall as it worked so well in my corn patch last year.

I'm glad you didn't go in today. nasty out there!

I just received a notice that my onions have shipped. May be hard to plant in my 6 inches of snow. LOL

Yes Carol, I did err when I said 2013. I meant that it was founded in 1913, which is pretty hard to imagine. I love that this family-owned company has remained family-owned all that time.

Bon, The important thing is to just get them planted to the best of your ability. You always can address feeding them later if they appear to need it (clay is fertile and you haven't gardened in yours for very many years so it might still have plenty of nutrients available).

Hazel, I hope you enjoyed your snow day. Sometimes they are nice for mental health and catching-up-on-real-life type days.

Carol, Maybe your snow will be melted soon, and the ground will be nice and soft and moist for planting.

No actual snow here. We got about 0.8" rain and a tiny amount of that fell as freezing rain, so all the plants, power lines, fences, etc. sparkled and twinkled in the sunlight during the few brief minutes when the sun snuck out of the clouds and we could see it. It wasn't even as cold as forecast, so I guess I have no real complaints about the weather. It could have been worse. As long as I stayed home here in our little low-lying creek hollow, I didn't even realize it was windy and the wind chill was awful. Once we were up on the higher ground, I was thinking it would have been a good day to stay home. I hope to be mudding in my onions into the ground in a couple of days.

Dawn, I've been thinking "I bet Dawn is getting wet!" and I'm glad to hear it, but sad it wasn't more. We're buried under 2" of ice, here. I don't care what any readings say.

Well the melting isn't starting tonight for sure. We are currently the coldest county in the State, at 9 degrees, and we didn't go above freezing today. I didn't leave the comfort of the house all day. Al went out to do outside jobs, but we didn't leave home at all. We had a grooming appointment for our poodle, but his groomer went to the hospital and someone else called to fill her appointments, so we just cancelled to keep from having to leave home. I guessed at the 6 inch snow total, but the news tonight said Grove got 5.5 inches and I'm only a few miles from town. I know Spring is coming, but I don't think it is rushing to get here.

Bon, You know, 8/10s of an inch isn't bad. At least it was not .08" or .01" (or 0.00"). We had twice our average January rainfall at our house so we have had mud all year. Of course, we also have hit 80 degrees, so things are blooming and leafing out in a way that is just so un-naturally early. Some parts of our county have been drier than us, but that part of the county rarely gets as much rain as we do so it isn't really surprising. I kinda miss having snow, but apparently it just isn't our year. We haven't had any to speak of this season, but I think that is because Carol is hogging all the snow this year. : )

Carol, I looked at the OK Mesonet temperature map about an hour ago and was totally shocked when I saw the temperature for your county and for the one beside it. Y'all are ridiculously cold compared to the rest of us, but then you have all those tons of snow to keep you chilled for a while. You and Al were smart to stay home and not get out on the roads in all that mess.

I don't know when you're finally going to get to plant anything.

It's just wrong when the only place in Oklahoma above freezing is in the panhandle.

We can use the moisture from the snow, and I am glad we have snow since it will act as an insulator on the ground. The Mesonet shows 7 degrees right now and our forecast was for 11. I'm thinking that I may start tomatoes tomorrow since I have to run heat in my growing room day and night anyway during this severe cold.

I agree. We had some wonderfully warm periods in December and January, but it appears we are going to spend February paying for those warm spells. I just hope the recurring cold spells don't carry over heavily into March.

Y'all got ridiculously cold last night. We only dropped down to 26 degrees and that was cold enough. I have doubts about whether onions, even if covered with a frost blanket, would have survived your overnight lows this week, so I'm glad you haven't planted yet. The snow would have helped insulate them, but it might not have been enough with temperatures that low.

I wasn't thinking about insulation for plants, but I'm sure some will struggle. I have banana plants that have done well here and I hope they survive this long cold spell since we have a forecast for 16 tonight and 9 tomorrow night. I was thinking of underground pipes and glad the snow was there to offer a little protection. We hit 32 a few minutes ago and are supposed to go to 38. We have sunshine, so will probably see some melting for all of the good that will do. LOL We have a chance of light snow again tonight.

I am cooking Cajun today in honor of Fat Tuesday, but it sure doesn't feel like Louisiana weather here. No Mardi Gras party, just the great food. LOL

We have sunshine and I had to open the greenhouse doors around noon to keep it from overheating. It is so good to see the sunshine today. It is not overly warm here, but it is 48 so I cannot complain. Tim thinks it is too cold, but I think it feels decent for this time of the year. He just has gotten too used to all those days we've been having in the 60s, 70s and even a few in the 80s. That sort of weather never lasts when we have it in midwinter. The weather we have now seems more normal to me.

The weekend isn't looking too good for some part of OK either. After thinking it might be the winter without much winter weather, I now think we're just getting our winter weather late.

Yum, Yum, Yum. I hope y'all enjoy the Cajun food. You don't need the party----the food makes a party of its own for Fat Tuesday. Since you cannot be out in your mini-Alaska garden working today, you might as well be cooking Cajun. I'm going out on a limb saying this because I haven't looked at the national weather maps, but it wouldn't surprise me if y'all were colder than Alaska was last night.